Is enabling of obesity tantamount to child abuse? How much responsibility do the parents have to keep their children healthy?

When it comes to childhood obesity, no one enjoys condemning parents, but some embody every trait the authorities, and the taxpayers, find so frustrating.

Child obesity results not just from parental negligence but from broader problems that seem to have turned the entire globe into obesogenic environment.

These examples of children removed from their parents because of obesity raise questions about the role a person’s weight plays in their ability to function.

While the home environment is important to address, much broader societal changes are required to effectively address childhood obesity.

Childhood Obesity News is tracing the history of opinion about whether society should criminalize parents for letting their kids get fat.

Connor McCreadie is the British 8-year-old whose case was the first to stir public interest in identifying obesity enablement as child abuse.

At some point, it became feasible to define obesity as a condition that the state should be concerned with.

Dr. Pretlow compares fast food outlets and junk-food stores to triggers. Can a society do anything to eliminate constant triggering of the impulse to eat?

Over 200 Food Policy Councils in the U.S. embrace farmers, retailers and distributors, at every stage of the massive undertaking known as feeding the people.

What can be learned from attempts to limit alcohol and tobacco addiction, and how do we apply that experience to curbing food overconsumption, and thus obesity?

This series of “zipping” posts summarizes all the articles that explore the intersections between alcohol, tobacco, food, and threats to the public good.

What methods might carry over from smoking cessation programs and alcohol interventions to help prevent obesity?

Can measures designed to reduce smoking and drinking also work against overeating?

Even with problems that seem comparable, like the widespread use of tobacco and alcohol, it is surprisingly difficult to transfer solutions to other areas.

Can compulsive overeating be vanquished by the same kind of laws that have banished smoking? Maybe, but not without a lot of protest.

How would the measures intended to curb smoking and deal with alcohol addiction translate to childhood obesity prevention?

What are the advantages and the downsides of adapting control mechanisms applied to alcohol and tobacco products to reversing the obesity epidemic?

Could the means used to reduce consumption of alcohol and tobacco be adaptable to the seemingly unstoppable epidemic of food overconsumption in the U.S.?

Can any anti-smoking measures be adapted to anti-obesity efforts? Public opinion does alter, and legislation can change behavior to a certain extent.

Any effort at persuasion through public relations can fail if it is perceived as shaming, and public health campaigns that rely on stigmatization can backfire.

If one third of our kids were suffering from asthma due to air pollution, we’d take draconian measures. Why is childhood obesity different?

Many drinkers and smokers consciously or unconsciously believe that they should not, so they’re OK with “sin taxes” — but it’s more complicated with junk food.

With tobacco and alcohol, the government both encourages and chastises their existence, sale and use, while profiting from the sale.

Portion control is all-important, and can be practiced both at home and out in the world. Banning “all-you-can-eat” restaurants might help.

Overeating is as much a threat as drinking and smoking to Americans’ health and the national budget. Can the methods used to fight any one of them cross over?

Clamping down on smoking in hospitals led to the first industry-wide ban of workplace smoking, and the idea caught on in other businesses.

Childhood Obesity News has been looking at measures taken around smoking, and, to a lesser extent, around alcohol, that are transferrable to obesity prevention.

Healthful meals, parental education, and portion control, to give three examples, are essential elements of Dr. Pretlow’s W8Loss2Go program.

Attempting to make overeating socially unacceptable, like smoking, seems like a good idea, but public relations experts do not always strike the right note.